Hey there, partner. We managed to clean this mess up a bit after some bandits came by again. Could ya help us out by cleanin' this mess up further? I'd reckon you'd impress the ladies around this town by adding info to it as well. If you're logged-in, it'll help you earn them fancy achievem'nts, too.

Red Dead Redemption multiplayer does not have a traditional "game lobby": instead, it starts out in Free Roam mode, with the entire map open for exploration, along with Hunting areas (with the Legends and Killers DLC) and Gang Hideouts of which players can take advantage of. From there, players can establish player parties with other players, called Posses, or choose to participate in various game modes via the in-game menu or various entry points around the game world. To see some of the glitches in multiplayer, click here.

A Mexican standoff

Contents

Game Modes

There are several game modes in Red Dead Redemption's multiplayer:

Free Roam

Free Roam is the entry point into multiplayer where you are free to go nearly anywhere in the world with up to 15 other players. This is also where you can pick your unique Character, Mount, and title in the Outfitter. Players are also able to band together and form Posses of up to 8 players. In these Posses you can take on other Posses and have a gang fight. During Free Roam you can take part in gang hideouts, one of the quickest ways of ranking up in online multiplayer of Red Dead Redemption. Along with gang hideouts, there are hunting grounds scattered throughout the world that you can gain xp from and complete various challenges. You can press the SELECT/BACK button to open up a menu where you can join posses, invite friends, or switch gametype. There are three modes of Free Roam: Normal, Hardcore, and Friendly. Players cannot kill other players in Friendly mode (other than with an ingenious way of stealing their Mount on a cliff), but they can in Normal and Hardcore. In Hardcore mode, expert targeting is required.

Competitive Modes

In competitive game modes, the gameplay begins with either a Mexican standoff in Free For All, with all the players beginning in a circle, or a team face-off, with all players in their respective team's line facing the other team. There will be a short countdown, then a firefight will commence, in which all the players will all start shooting at once. Most players will die right off, allowing the remaining players to find a choice location (such as a sniping spot) to fend off their attackers. Once the standoff ends, and everyone from one team dies, the actual game you are playing (Gang Shootout, Hold Your Own, Grab the Bag, etc.) starts. There are also a variety of weapons to be found in chests around the map.

During "gang" matches players will be assigned a player model, but during Free for All matches and in Free Roam, players will be allowed to use their chosen model. The player's selected mount is only usable in some game modes, and in team based matches all players will be assigned one type of horse to keep the game fair. Guns are also assigned to any game type except "Free Roam", in any competitive game mode players are assigned a pre-determined set of guns for the round, to get an idea of what guns you will receive, look to the dummy in the pre-game lobby. If you unlock a gun by leveling up it will be available to you in Free Roam.

Cooperative Mode

Cooperative play was introduced with the Outlaws To The End DLC, and you must download it to be able to play this mode; however, the DLC is free.

In Cooperative mode, a group of up to four players will work as a team through one of the six missions available. If a player's health drops to the point of dying, they will begin bleeding out and be unable to shoot or move. They will have a certain amount of time, as represented above their heads, before they bleed out. During this time, a teammate must revive them or they will die. If a player dies, they will be out of the game and forced to spectate a teammate until the next checkpoint,which are usually frequent, is reached. Players choose a loadout in the pre-game lobby, by walking up to a gun set, represented by a dummy, and selecting the one they want as their weapon set; there are four loadouts available (Miner, Soldier, Marskman, Gunslinger) The weapons they choose will be with them throughout the mission, however they can pick up weapons from fallen enemies as well. Players retain their selected player model.

If the player beats all six missions, they will unlock Advanced Cooperative Mode. This mode is fixed to expert targeting, players take damage easier and bleed out faster. However Advanced Cooperative Mode has the "No Holds Barred" loadout, which allows the player to use all the weapons they have unlocked by leveling up throughout mulitplayer.

Multiplayer Maps

In Free Roam, you can move in the whole game world but in PvP (competitive mode), there's limited map areas where matches take place. The maps which come along with the game are:

Gang Hideouts

Gang Hideouts are the fastest method of gaining experience while in Free Roam. The faster the player completes a hideout, the more XP is gained. Other factors also go into the player's XP gain. Gang hideouts can be completed alone or with a posse. The most common gang hideouts that are played in multiplayer are Solomon's Folly and Twin Rocks. These two are regarded as the fastest and easiest hideouts to complete, resulting in a fast XP gain. After the patch released on June 12th, however, XP awarded for gang hideouts has been decreased.

(There used to be a method to get the amount of XP you used to get before the patch. You would clear your Xbox 360's cache, which deletes all patches, and use system link to gang hideout farm. For PS3, you would just go into "Game Data Utility" delete the patch, start up the game, decline the update, and play multiplayer using LAN. However, this no longer works, as Rockstar made it so that if you delete the patch, it will automatically delete your multiplayer data as well, resulting in you returning to level 1.)

While the two above hideouts are reported as the fastest hideouts, it is more common for newer players to repeat runs of Tumbleweed. This is due to how close it is to the starting areas of Armadillo, MacFarlane's Ranch, or even Thieves' Landing. It is common for higher level players to do repeated runs of Tesoro Azul, due to the relatively low difficulty and being a moderately fast gang hideout.

Titles

During the multiplayer game experience, whether in Free Roam or structured game modes, players will be able to earn titles corresponding to criteria met during play. This can be anything from a certain amount of experience accrued to completing certain actions a number of times or in a specific way. Titles, once selected, will appear above the player's name on their in-game icon until the player decides to change it, which they can do at anytime.

You keep all your titles when you pass into legend.

Mounts

In the multiplayer of Red Dead Redemption, the player can choose the mount their character summons/rides in Free Roam and some competitive matches. The player changes their mount by visiting the Outfitter in the Multiplayer section of the pause menu. Different mounts become available only after achieving various online ranks. When the player ranks up and unlocks a new mount for use, their old mount is replaced by the new one even if the player hasn't visited the Outfitter yet. But in some rare occasions this doesn't happen.

In successive legend modes, mounts are generally unlocked earlier as there are more mounts to unlock.

Several non-unlockable horses, such as the Kentucky Saddler or the Infested Ardennaiscan be found in multiplayer, in the wild or ridden by other people. These horses can be mounted, but will not respond to a whistle.

Challenges

In multiplayer, a large selection of challenges are available for players to complete. More challenges unlock as a player progresses through the ranking system. Completing a challenge earns the player experience. The status of each active challenge, found in the player's Journal, is indicated by a bar that progressively fills up as the challenge is accomplished. For example, if the challenge requires the player to shoot 5 rabbits for a Sharpshooter challenge, each rabbit shot adds to this indicator bar until all 5 have been shot.

When a player reaches Rank 50 and agrees to return to Rank 1 to gain Legend status, all challenges will be reset. Any unlocked Titles associated with challenges previously completed will remain.

Ranks

When playing multiplayer, a player can gain experience by killing other players, completing challenges, killing NPC's (citizens and police officers) and clearing hideouts. When the player gains enough experience to be promoted to the next rank, they can unlock new characters, weapons, mounts and titles.

A player can be promoted through fifty ranks. After each level up the player gets a new badge.When they reach Rank 50, they have the option to return to Rank 1 to gain Legend status, similar to the 'Prestige' mode in Call of Duty. Legend mode builds towards unlocking legendary characters and mounts. They can do this up to five times in addition to the original ranks, which means a player could progress through a total of 250 ranks to reach the highest level in multiplayer. Once entering legend the player will get a legend badge a new character and a new mount at level fifty.

Once at Rank 50, a player can choose to gain Legend status at any time afterwards. The following confirmation messages are displayed when gaining Legend status:

Legendary Awards for your Rank once you have passed into Legend

"PASS INTO LEGEND"

"Your rank will reset from 50 back to 1 in exchange for the benefits of becoming a Legend. All weapons and mounts you have unlocked through leveling up will be lost and all challenges are reset. Your access to playlists, titles, golden guns and characters will remain the same. Would you like to become a Legend?"

"There is no undoing this change once you commit to it. You will lose your weapons, mounts, and challenge progress, but in exchange will get access to special Legendary characters and the right to earn Legendary mounts. Passing into Legend only occurs in Free Roam. Are you really sure you want to do this?"

As of 12 June 2010, Gang Hideout XP has been severely decreased, up to 2/3 of what it once was. Owing to the vast amount of XP required to reach Legend 5, it is recommended to remain at Rank 50 once attained as becoming a Legend only gives the variety of different mounts/characters/titles/rank icon, with the Legendary mounts being poorer than the American Standardbred in terms of speed/agility. The one exception to this is the zebra donkey which is unlocked upon reaching the highest legendary rank.

Weapons (Multiplayer)

All weapons available in single player are available in multiplayer game sessions. While the hunting knife is available in multiplayer, other equipment, such as the lasso, bandolier, and binoculars are not.

When joining a session, players have a set of weapons determined by multiplayer rank and some ammunition for each gun in their possession. Additional weapons can be obtained by picking them up from dead players/NPCs and weapon crates (shown on the in-game minimap as a pistol icon). Increasing a player's rank will immediately place any weapons unlocked into the players possession.

When a player dies in a multiplayer game session, they respawn with all the weapons in their possession when they died. The amount of ammunition in each weapon set to a default amount, similar to if they had just joined the game.

Ammo crates are also scattered throughout the environment (they look like bullets on the mini-map).

All Unlocks

Hold it right there, outlaw!This article is littered with spoilers, so I reckon you might ought'a mosey on down the road if you don't want to read any plot details.

Characters

In multiplayer you can choose your character model in the Outfitter. For now, there are 15 categories of characters, each based on characters taken from the single player game:

Note: There is an issue with the multiplayer characters "Jesse Lange" and "Jefe Rocha". Despite their different names and being put in different categories, they are the same character skin and speak spanish as well regardless of which list you choose the skin from. It is not known whether this is a glitch or if it is intentional.

Many of the characters are available from the start (Level 1) which gives the player a good amount of choice when choosing one to start off with. When starting a new multiplayer campaign the player will also be randomly assigned one of these characters. The characters that are available from level 1 are as follows: